


Tactical Piemaking

by atypicalowl



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Bitty is a master pastry tactician, Crack, Gen, this is not a Parse-friendly fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 04:21:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16422314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atypicalowl/pseuds/atypicalowl
Summary: Eric Richard Bittle had long since perfected the subtle art of weaponizing pie.That didn't make it any easier to behold his most abominable creation to date.“Lordy. What have I done?”





	Tactical Piemaking

Eric Richard Bittle had long since perfected the subtle art of weaponizing pie.

Take, for example, the careful insult of a beautifully latticed apple pie made with Red Delicious. Or perhaps the more direct route of baking a red cherry pie for someone who prefers black cherries. A sinfully decadent chocolate mousse, carefully applied as a bribe. Occasionally, even something as sinister as using flimsy off-brand foil tins that are prone to dumping a pie on the incautious lap.

Sometimes, the pie is literally weaponized. It is not, after all, a challenging task to make the optimal pie to throw in someone’s face. (The theatre kids needed convincing comedy props, and he needed taste testers. They traded services.)

For face-pies, simplicity is key. Use a basic crust and a cream or mousse filling, topped with extra whipped cream for effect -- never lemon cream or key lime, because of the risk of getting citrus in the eyes. If it _has_ to be a fruit pie (theatre kids can be _picky,_ good Lord _)_ , apple is a good choice, because it stains minimally and, again, has low acid content for minimal risk of injury. Just be sure to make as thin of a lattice as possible, and undercook it slightly so it still has a little springiness, so there's less of a chance of eye or face injury due to crumbs at velocity.

Face-pies and literal weaponization are easy. It’s another beast entirely to deploy a thoughtfully executed key lime pie or peach crumble to prevent a PTA mom meltdown. (He still has nightmares about Stacey and the Cherry Cobbler of ’07)

He had seen it all in his journey to mastery of the craft of using baked goods to win friends and influence people.

Or so he thought.

Despite his long career in tactical piemaking, he was humbled by his latest creation. A true monstrosity, and his most terrifying weapon to date. He hadn’t thought he was capable of it. But there it was.

“Lordy,” Bitty rasped, his lungs doing their job shakily as he gazed at the abomination. “What have I _done?”_

On the counter, sitting in a perfectly ordinary foil tin, was a cherry pie.

Or, at least it appeared to be a cherry pie.

Beneath the delicate, golden brown lattice, the tin held a secret. A deep, dark secret that made Bitty shudder as he gazed upon the innocent camouflage he had created.

It was, without a doubt, the worst pie he had ever made.

The first sin was the filling: it was from a can. It was the goopiest, slimiest, mushiest garbage he could find. He had scoured every grocery store within a fifteen mile radius for one of every brand available. Cans upon cans piled up in the recycling bin as Bitty opened each one, inspected the contents, and performed a number of standardized measurements to rate them by factors such as color, texture, and viscosity (Ransom jumped at the chance to make the spreadsheet. He also jumped at the chance to help with the taste testing. He changed his mind after sighting the first spoon with an unnaturally fire-engine-red cherry sitting upon it.) He was incredibly methodical and scientific in his search for the worst cherry filling available locally.

Eventually, he settled upon the store brand from a crappy national chain; it was packed with corn syrup, artificial flavoring, and enough red 40 dye that it made the eyes water to look at it. It wobbled like it was made of jello when it was dumped in a pile, but was incredibly sticky and stained instantly if it contacted human flesh.

Bitty was a terrifying baked good weaponsmith, but even he had standards. He had sought the worst and had found it, but he could not bring himself to inflict The Worst Filling on anyone in its base state. That would be a war crime. Shitty had told him so when he carried the recycling bag full of cherry filling cans to the bin.

(“Bitty, if it was literally anyone but you, I'd be very concerned that there is a lot of sharp metal dripping red in here. Haus serial killer or some shit.”

“Oh, no, you should still be concerned.”

Bitty told him his plan.

Shitty cackled. Then volunteered to help.)

He added a touch of beet juice and lemon juice, both to soothe his conscience by adding more depth of flavor and a contrast to the cloying sweetness, and to thin the filling enough that it would actually settle into the crust instead of staying upright in a quivering, vaguely-can-shaped pile of gelatinous fruit.

The crust was created from the grossest margarine available and crushed store brand graham crackers. The lattice was stale puff pastry from the freezer aisle. It didn’t look sloppy, of course – Bitty would _never_ stoop low enough to do visibly shoddy work – but it was sliced thicker and woven simpler than what he thought of as his “everyday” crust.

Once the pie was assembled, it was baked. Temperature and time were meticulously monitored, and a few family secrets applied to ensure a beautiful golden brown finish yet a terribly dry and brittle crust, the sort that would send pieces of sharp pastry into one's gums on the first bite (Bitty was far from the first vindictive baker in his family).

And now there it was, sitting on the counter as it cooled.

Bitty had never seen a pie loom ominously before.

It looked like any other cherry pie. Someone familiar with Bitty’s baking might comment that he got lazy with the lattice. Someone unfamiliar with his baking would be perfectly willing to buy a slice of it at a diner. They might even like it. Beet and lemon juice go a long way.

With a shudder, Bitty placed it into the pie carrier to await its final destination.

He grimly reminded himself that the intended recipient deserved every drop of the slimy canned filling.

He still felt vaguely guilty as he began to wash the baking dishes.

 

~~~~~

 

It was a tense game, played two days after the Pie Abomination was brought into the world. The Aces played well, but the Falconers played better. Bitty winced every time Jack got checked. He cheered every time it happened to Ace #90.

The pie sat in the carrier under his seat. It had somehow become reassuring in its presence instead of intimidating. The pie could not hurt him. That was not its purpose.

It was a twisted creation of inhuman wickedness. Its existence defied every fiber of Bitty’s baking being. Just knowing it existed made Bitty believe in the metaphysical; there was a great disturbance in the Baking Force, as if the entire Bittle ancestral lineage had taken one look at what he made, cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.

But that was okay. This pie was not meant for consumption, or as a vehicle to deliver happiness. That was not its purpose.

Bitty knew the pie's purpose. The pie knew its purpose.

They only had to wait.

 

~~~~~

 

The game ended. The Falconers, triumphant.

Jack, upright and smiling but wobbling slightly, as if in a vague mockery of the gelatinous pie filling before Bitty thinned it.

Shitty squeezed Bitty’s arm. It was time.

He reached under the seat and handed the pie carrier gingerly to Shitty. Their eyes met.

“Be careful,” Bitty said gravely. “You don’t know what went into that thing.”

“Dude, I took out the recycling after you opened all those filling cans.” Shitty nodded solemnly. “I am aware of the WMD I carry, my bro.”

“Good. Pay it the proper respect, and you may yet emerge unscathed.”

 

~~~~~

 

The pie is deployed.

Chaos, as it is wont to do, ensues.

 

~~~~~

 

Security escorts Shitty from the premises. He talks himself out of criminal charges but receives a lifetime ban from that ice arena for assaulting a professional hockey player.

_“Absolutely fucking worth it.”_

 

~~~~~

 

Bitty is banned by his teammates from ever again creating weaponized baked goods that violate the Geneva Conventions.

_“Come on, you can’t be serious.”_

_“Protocol I, Articles 35, 51, 54. And I think 79 can be argued because of the cameraman.”_

_“Shitty, you were supposed to be on my side!”_

 

~~~~~

 

Jack Zimmermann, captain of the Falconers -- who has a known baker as a significant other -- denies all involvement. (His innocence is ultimately proven, because Bitty left him in the dark to preserve plausible deniability.)

 _“Am I honestly supposed to keep track of what happens to every pie my boyfriend bakes? How do you know it was his pie anyway? I know you think it was him because the lattice was exceptionally even, but he would_ never _mix puff pastry and graham cracker crust.”_

 

_~~~~~_

 

Somewhere in an art studio, Lardo is interrupted from deep concentration when her phone goes off. It’s not any familiar contact’s ringtone; it’s the TARDIS cloister bell from Doctor Who. A sound that alarms any seasoned scifi fan, but holds a special concern for her.

It is her “S. Knight is trending in the news” notification alert.

_(She had set it a long time ago during a college party, just for kicks, and had never deleted it. They were drunk and she was making fun of him._

_She had never imagined she would actually hear it.)_

 

~~~~~

 

Kent Parson’s hair is pink in the front for weeks, owing to the the potent slime full of red dye and beet juice.

His optometrist assures him that the strangely acidic pie filling did no damage, even if the lemon _burned like a--._

Well. His publicist is trying to get him to stop using that word.

The effects of the filling are distracting enough that he never makes the connection between the micro-cuts that make shaving torture for a week and the flakes of dry, over-baked puff pastry that exploded in his face like so many shards of shattered, carb-filled porcelain.

Despite repeated laundering, his uniform never regains its original color. It is replaced, and he burns the stained one.

The smoke smells faintly of cherries.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I apparently wrote the outline to this sometime in 2016. I rediscovered it and expanded it, because sometimes you just have to write a detailed account of someone you hate getting the worst possible pie to the face.
> 
> As always, the lovely [fulldaysdrive](http://archiveofourown.org/users/fulldaysdrive) was my stupendous beta reader, helping me to inflict the maximum possible quality of crackfic upon the universe!


End file.
